


Waiting for the Sun

by HoodedAndromeda



Category: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Close Sibling Relationships, F/M, Grief, Iron Butterfly, Mourning, Referenced/Implied Original Female Characters, Robert "Chop Top" Sawyer/Original Female Character (Referenced), Sonny and Cher, Strained family relationships, The Beatles - Freeform, The Doors - Freeform, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoodedAndromeda/pseuds/HoodedAndromeda
Summary: A week after Bobby leaves for Vietnam, Nubbins is struggling to adapt to life without his twin.
Relationships: Grandpa Sawyer/Grandma Sawyer, Robert "Chop Top" Sawyer/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Waiting for the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the writing prompt "Night Light"

It wasn’t like Nubbins had never slept alone before. He’d spent plenty of nights at truck stops, in graveyards, in the backs of strangers’ cars, and so on. Plus, Bobby had been sneaking out to spend at least one night a week with his girlfriend, Maisie, for years. But there was something different about spending nights on his own now. There never used to be this gnawing feeling in his gut keeping him awake. He’d never felt it while falling asleep on a bench a few towns over, or when Bobby was slipping out the window to go visit Maisie.

Nubbins had honestly never had such a hard time sleeping in his life. He actually prided himself on being able to sleep anywhere and through anything. But in the past week, he’d gotten maybe ten hours of shut-eye total, and it was never for more than an hour at a time. Instead of sleeping, he was spending his nights lying flat on his back and looking at the bedroom ceiling.

He had shared a bedroom for twenty-four years. And suddenly, he had his own room. And it might be just his room forever. The thought of “forever” made Nubbins’s mouth feel dry and his throat feel tight. He didn’t know if he could handle it if Bobby never came home. There had always been “The Twins” or “Bobby and Nubbins.” There had never been “Just Nubbins.” What would he do if Bobby died?

Before Grandma died, Nubbins didn’t think about death at all. He saw it working at the slaughterhouse all the time, but that was work. He’d never thought of death as a personal tragedy until Grandma died. He’d never thought about death and his family, even though he’d been through it before. He didn’t really remember Mamma, except that she had had a real sweet voice and that her eyes had looked just like Bubba’s. And no one knew what had happened to Pa after he left, not even Grandpa. Nubbins assumed that Pa had started a family that he actually liked, and when he shared his theory with Bobby, he’d agreed. Pa probably wasn’t dead, but it didn’t make much of a difference to Nubbins either way since he’d been gone for eighteen years.

When Grandma died, it changed everything. Drayton got meaner. He started beating the shit out of Nubbins and Bobby and Bubba on the regular. And Grandpa didn’t stop him anymore. He just sorta let it happen. Without Grandma around, Grandpa shut down. And so did Bubba. Getting him to work, or off the property at all, was a nightmare. He always had to be dragged to wherever he was supposed to be, kicking and screaming and crying the whole way.

Bobby started disappearing. Probably because Drayton went after him the most. Bobby and Drayton were always fighting, but it was the worst within the first six months of Grandma’s death. Nubbins had always been the one with itchy feet—he couldn’t stand staying in Newt for more than a few days at a time. It made him all jittery. When he needed to get out, a lot of times he and Bobby (and sometimes Bubba) would go for long drives and listen to music and drink sodas. Sometimes he and Bobby went into the neighboring towns and would just spend the whole night hanging out. And when Bobby wasn’t around to drive, Nubbins would hitchhike.

He liked going to different places in different cars with different people. It made him feel like he was living in a television show, and every ride he hitched was a new episode with a new adventure. But Bobby never liked hitchhiking. He never really wanted to be in a car unless he was the one behind the wheel. When Bobby went out on his own, he took his own truck. It was a little tricky sneaking out that way, though, since he had to be sure everyone else was asleep if he was gonna drive off someplace, especially if he was gonna go see Maisie, since Nubbins was the only one who knew about Maisie. Somehow, though, even if he didn’t leave ‘til one in the morning, Bobby always made it home by sunrise. Until Grandma died. After that, Bobby started leaving whenever he and Drayton had a fight, and sometimes he’d be gone for two or three whole days.

When Grandma died, Nubbins realized that he could lose any of his family members at any moment. He’d never really been afraid of dying himself, but losing his family? That scared the shit out of him. And if Grandma dying made everyone act this weird, what would happen if anyone else died?

Nubbins rolled over onto his side with a groan. He stared across the room at Bobby’s bed, which he’d made for probably the first time in months before he left. There was a heap of blankets piled on it, since for some reason Bobby could never resist the urge to buy colorful quilts and serapes. He’d kept a few in his room but had a shitload in his truck. After Drayton sold Bobby’s truck two days ago, he’d carried the pile of blankets inside and dumped them on Bobby’s bed.

Personally, Nubbins liked to spend any extra money he scrounged up on snacks, sodas, and film for his camera. He’d never gotten the point of having more than two blankets, and he also didn’t find the pins that Bobby was always hoarding particularly fascinating, either. Records, though? Now _that_ was a frequent purchase of Bobby’s that Nubbins could almost always get behind.

Nubbins sat up. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been sleeping! Bobby didn’t like things quiet. Ever since they started living with Grandma and Grandpa, he’d been like that. When they were little, Bobby would beg for bedtime story after bedtime story until Drayton or Grandma got sick of reading out loud. And when they left, Bobby would talk with Nubbins for hours, until he finally passed out mid-conversation. When it was warm out, Bobby insisted on sleeping with the window in their room cracked so he could hear the crickets and cicadas or the wind or the rain. And once they got a little older, they were allowed to keep a radio in their room.

After that point, music always played all night long. For something like twelve years, Nubbins had been falling asleep to the radio or Bobby’s record player. Nubbins had never had any trouble falling asleep in quiet places, but he was used to listening to music in bed by now. So maybe that was where his trouble was coming from.

Nubbins climbed out of bed, scratching an itch on the back of his head and wincing as his fingers got caught in a tangle. He walked across the room and then knelt down in front of the box where Bobby stored his records, beginning to flip through them. He passed over Sonny and Cher’s _Look at Us_ , The Beatles’ _Help!_ and _Twist and Shout,_ Iron Butterfly’s _Heavy_ and _In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,_ and The Doors’ _Strange Days_ before finally settling on _Waiting for the Sun._ Nubbins had always liked the song “Summer’s Almost Gone” on that one.

He carefully pulled the album out of the box and held it in his hands, staring down at the cover. As he looked at the soft, sunrise colors of the album’s cover, he gradually became aware of the fact that his hands were shaking. He felt like maybe he needed to cough or spit or clear his throat or something. He turned his head slightly to cough into his shoulder and surprised himself with the noise he made. He didn’t cough. Instead, he had made this weird, pitchy, croaking sound. He wanted to laugh at that stupid little noise, but he couldn’t even bring himself to crack a smile.

For whatever reason, it suddenly didn’t seem cool to be dicking around with Bobby’s albums. Music had always been something kinda sacred to him. Nubbins wasn’t even sure if he felt right about turning on the radio, either. At least not right now. Not alone. Maybe tomorrow night, he’d ask Bubba to come upstairs and listen with him.

Nubbins sniffed, then gently placed the The Doors album back where it belonged. When it was safe inside the box, he shifted his position so that instead of kneeling he was sitting cross-legged on the warped wooden floor, his hands dangling limply over his knees. He looked up at a string of Christmas lights he and Bobby had taped to the ceiling a few years ago. A lot of the bulbs were burnt out now. It had taken them weeks to figure out exactly how much tape they needed to keep the lights from falling down on them in their sleep. Drayton had been pretty pissed to wake up to the sounds of falling lights and Nubbins’s and Bobby’s yelps of surprise night after night.

Nubbins sighed and turned his attention to his bag and his knapsack, which he’d left by the bedroom door. If he wanted to, he could grab those two things and his camera, climb out the window, walk down to the road, hitch a ride, and just be gone. He’d thought about picking up and leaving sometimes, but he’d started thinking about it a lot more since they all found out Bobby was going to ‘Nam. He sometimes had daydreams about hitching all the way to New York or Chicago or L.A., someplace cool where he could always be on the move and take lots of pictures. And maybe along the way, he’d meet a nice girl or make some friends. Or something. He hadn’t seen any of his friends in a real long time. He wasn’t even sure if he technically had any friends outside his brothers anymore. That’s how long it had been.

Life without Bobby turned out to be a lot harder than Nubbins had expected it to be. And he’d only been gone a week! He wasn’t even in ‘Nam yet, he still had something like seven more weeks of training before they shipped him off. Before the draft, Nubbins had never known what life without Bobby was like. Nubbins kept expecting to see Bobby next to him or behind him or across the room. And every time he didn’t, his chest felt tight, and his stomach hurt, and his hands got sweaty. What really fucking sucked was that even though Bobby wasn’t around anymore, Nubbins still spent all day seeing Bobby’s shit. Like that big-ass pile of blankets, and the jewelry piled on top of the dresser and hanging on the doorknob like a beaded “Do Not Disturb” sign. The worst was having to see his empty chair at the dinner table.

Hitching rides made it a little easier for Nubbins to forget that Bobby wasn’t gonna be around for a long time or maybe even ever again, since hitchhiking had always been something Nubbins had done on his own anyway. But even though Nubbins thought about leaving, he wasn’t gonna up and abandon his family. He was loyal. He wasn’t gonna give up just because things were harder now. Drayton would probably be a lot happier on his own, but Bubba and Grandpa needed Nubbins. _Especially_ Bubba.

He’d been having a rough time. Before Bobby left, he let Bubba pick one of his necklaces to wear while he was away. Bubba hadn’t taken it off even once. He was crying a hell of a lot more than usual, which was saying something since Bubba cried almost every day already. He’d fallen behind on his chores, too. And then there was his mask.

After Nubbins and Bubba lost their jobs at the slaughterhouse, Bubba started covering his face with a pillowcase he’d cut eye holes out of. When they were all sick of the pillowcase, Bobby brought home a plastic Halloween mask to replace it. Bubba had lost his mind for that clown mask. He repainted it maybe every other month and bedazzled it with sparkly things like pebbles and beads, and he replaced the cheap string with one of Grandma’s hair ribbons. Before Bobby left, Bubba took the mask off at meals and about an hour before bed. But all of a sudden, the only time Bubba wasn’t wearing his mask was when he was asleep. And that was only because when he had tried to sleep with it on, the side got cracked and cut up his face pretty good. 

Bubba was acting a lot like how he acted when Grandma died. It was really kinda starting to freak Nubbins out. Bubba had always been a funny kid, but Nubbins had been confident that he’d grow up fine. But now, he wasn’t so sure. 

Nubbins thought about Bubba all alone downstairs. He used to share this room with Nubbins and Bobby, but after a while, things started to get cramped. There was really barely enough space for two people in there, let alone three. The farmhouse only had three bedrooms, and there was no way Drayton was gonna share his room with Bubba, so eventually Bubba started sleeping on the pullout couch downstairs.

Nubbins pushed his hair behind his ears, then wiped the oil his hair left on his fingers off on the legs of his pajama pants. Nubbins pushed himself to his feet with a grunt, then snagged a purple serape off from the pile of blankets on Bobby’s bed. It was coolish to the touch and smelled a little dusty. It was definitely a blanket that had lived in the truck. Nubbins wrapped the serape around his shoulders, then walked over to the door, kicking his bags away so he could open it. He grabbed the doorknob with one hand and the cluster of necklaces with the other, so that they wouldn’t bang against the wood when he opened the door and wake up Drayton.

Nubbins stepped out into the hall and crept toward the staircase. He stayed close to the wall as he descended the stairs so the steps would creak as little as possible. When he reached the foyer, he ducked into the living room. He stood in the entryway for a moment, looking at Bubba asleep on the pullout couch. His back was to Nubbins, so he couldn’t see his face. Nubbins padded over to Bubba and thumped him lightly on the top of his head.

“Hey, Bubba.” Bubba grunted and snuggled down further into the pullout couch. Nubbins thumped him again a little harder, and Bubba grunted again, this time reaching up to push Nubbins’s hand away.

“Bubba!” Nubbins whispered harshly, beginning to roughly shake his brother’s shoulder, “c’mon, sh-shove o-o-ov-over, fatass.” With a few disgruntled chicken-like squawks, Bubba moved so that his chest was pressed up against the back of the couch. Nubbins climbed in next to him, positioning the purple blanket so that it covered both of them. When he was satisfied by the amount of blanket he had, he laid down on his side so that he and Bubba were back to back.

“Th-thanks, man.” Bubba mumbled a sleepy, somewhat slurred question, which Nubbins inferred was Bubba asking if something was wrong. He shrugged. “‘m fine, Bubbs, I j-just, uh, I j-ju-just, uh…” Nubbins sighed, then squeezed his eyes shut. “I c-ca-can’t sleep.” He said softly. Bubba didn’t answer, but Nubbins could tell from Bubba’s silence that he understood. Nubbins would bet good money that Bubba hadn’t been getting much sleep either. He breifly wondered if Drayton was having trouble, too. He guessed he’d never find out if he was. That wasn’t the sort of question he could ask his older brother, and it definitely wasn’t information Drayton would volunteer.

“…d-don’t, uh, don’t tell Drayton I c-ca-came down ‘ere.” Bubba clucked reassuringly, and Nubbins smiled. “Kay, thanks, Bubba.” He paused. “G’night.” Bubba said goodnight back, and before too long, he was snoring. Nubbins had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He’d forgotten how loudly Bubba snored. He’d always sounded like he was sawing logs, even when he was a little kid. But despite the volume, the rhythmic sound and the comfortable familiarity of having one of his brothers nearby finally lulled Nubbins into a few much-needed hours of sleep.


End file.
